The Stage

Gladiator Games

Published Wednesday 26 October 2005 at 17:05 by John Highfield

In the year 2000, young British Asian Zahid Mubarek was beaten by racist and mentally unstable cellmate Robert Stewart on the eve of his release from Feltham Young Offenders Institution and a few days later he died.

Now, following a public enquiry, comes Tanika Gupta’s worthy and well-intentioned reconstruction of the events that led to the brutal tragedy and the legal process that followed, a process that exposed a system riddled with lazy but dangerous racism.

Dramatically, there is a great story waiting to be told here but Gupta favours an approach that would sit more comfortably in the world of television docu-drama than theatre, creating a solid but uninvolving reconstruction rather than the gripping story it could have been.

An outstanding Ray Panthaki has the toughest challenge of the evening, mainly because Gupta transforms Mubarek into little more than a dramatic cipher - he may be a victim of an unjust system but to carefully airbrush a drug problem that is given only a passing reference and suggest he was no more than a petty shoplifter does the drama no favours.

Tom McKay is much better served, mainly because a warts-and-all portrayal of killer Stewart allows him to create something genuinely chilling, a disturbed and disturbing presence brought to life with an unsettling intensity.

The rest of the cast all work wonders with a full gallery of family, prisoners and representatives of the system, though a fine selection of accents cannot mask the fact that they are playing types rather than characters.

Director Charlotte Westenra maintains pace and, in the second act, generates some tension as the two young men face up to each other in their cell.

But you cannot escape the feeling that, for all its important message, Gladiator Games is a story that would be much better served on television.

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